Just months ago, voters looked at congressional candidate
David Loverne as a man who held family above all else.
A beautiful wife, Cindy. An ambitious daughter, Mya.
But all this is gone after a series of revelations that have shocked New Yorkers and destroyed a family that seemed indestructible.
David Loverne is being accused of perpetuating a long affair with a former aide, Esther Margolis. Ms.
Margolis claims she is pregnant with Loverne's child, and that Mr. Loverne paid her sums totaling nearly ten thousand dollars in order to keep quiet and raise the child alone. Mr. Loverne refused comment for this article, but Ms. Margolis said, "I couldn't face looking at my son years from now and lying to him about who his father is."
I read the rest of the article, my heart hammering, hands shaking. Then I came to a line that nearly had me shouting in anger. It read: Yet David and Cindy Loverne are not the only members of the Loverne family whose world has been shat tered.
Mya. Paulina was going to exploit Mya's fragility to sell newspapers. I read on, rage building inside me.
When you first look at Mya Loverne, you see a woman brimming with potential. Young, with strong green eyes, a confidence and solidarity that tells you she's taken on everything the world has thrown at her.
At first glance you would think the world is this young woman's oyster.
But that isn't the case. In fact, far from it.
In the last eighteen months, Mya Loverne has been attacked. She's had her bones broken by an attempted rapist. And she's been abandoned by the one person who promised to be there for her.
For Mya Loverne, the wine has grown warm, the roses wilted. The one person to whom this misery can be pinned is Gazette reporter Henry Parker, with whom
Mya ended a three-year relationship last summer. The relationship was halted in the most disgusting, careless way possible, when Henry dumped Ms. Loverne for another woman. This was prior to Mr. Parker being accused of murder, a charge that was not pursued, despite a nationwide manhunt that left several dead.
"We shared our bed and our lives for almost three years," Mya told me when we met yesterday at a coffee shop near her apartment. "Do you know what it's like to have someone know every intimate detail of your life and then not even return your phone calls?"
The original sin, however, was the night last year when
Mya was attacked while on her way home from a party.
"A man pulled me into an alley," Mya told me, the pain from that night still evident in her eyes so many months later. "He wanted to rape me. He told me he was going to hurt me."
In an effort to call for help, Mya pressed the redial button on her cellular phone. It dialed the last number she'd called. Her boyfriend, Henry Parker.
"I called him while this man was on top of me," Mya said. "And Henry hung up."
Thankfully Mya, ever resourceful, was able to get a shot of pepper spray off, deterring her attacker from committing the heinous crime of rape. It did not, however, prevent him from breaking Mya's jaw in retaliation. Henry Parker, though, did not see Mya until the next day, when after a frantic night of phone calls from
Mya's parents they were unable to locate him. The reason they couldn't find Henry?
"He told me," said Mya, "that after he hung up he turned his cell phone off."
We all know how Henry Parker has destroyed the family of his former pursuer Officer Joseph Mauser, deceased, John Fredrickson, deceased, and Linda Fredrickson, widowed. We have seen the careless havoc he has wrought upon the lives of good and decent people like Mya Loverne. And yet he is allowed to cover the news for this city's "esteemed" newspaper, the Gazette.
Well, readers, if this is the kind of human being they have reporting the news, the kind of human being Harvey Hillerman and Wallace Langston claim is qualified to enter your lives every morning, I must say this is a dark day in the history of journalism, and for humanity itself.
The question is, fellow citizens, will you stand for men like David Loverne and Henry Parker occupying prestigious roles in our society? If you're like me, the answer is obvious. Rise up, and demand more from our newsmen and our leaders. Demand they be held accountable for their actions. Demand that they not be allowed to harm one more innocent life.
I put the paper down. Noticed the newsprint smudged on my fingers. Didn't bother to wipe it off. My hand trembled as I laid it down. In an article about the infidelity of David
Loverne, Paulina had stooped to a level lower than I imagined possible.
Mya.
The article had clearly been written and submitted before her father's murder.
I called you, Henry.
And I didn't answer. And now the whole world knows it.
And the whole world sees me as a demon. But I'm not. And they won't believe me.
Oh God, Mya, how could you?
I stared out the window, alone in an airport in a strange city, thinking of the girl whose heart I'd broken, the girl whose destiny I had changed for the worse, the girl whose life would never be the same. I sat there and stared at the newspaper and thought of Mya, and thought of Amanda, and wondered if
Paulina Cole was right.